Peter Mark Richman: Next on TVC

Actor, author and artist Peter Mark Richman and TV and music historian Chuck Harter will join us this weekend on a brand new edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing July 20-23 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 7/20
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil
Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 7/21
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 7/22
10am ET, 7am PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

As an actor, Peter Mark Richman draws from a deep well of experience on the Broadway stage, motion pictures and television, including starring roles in his own series, Cain’s Hundred, as well as on Longstreet and Santa Barbara; recurring roles on such shows as Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210 and, of course, Three’s Company; and guest star roles in more than 500 other TV series, including Murder She Wrote, Fantasy Island, Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Mission: Impossible, and just about every show produced by Quinn Martin.

Though most of us think of Peter Mark Richman as an actor—and particularly, an actor who was often cast as a heavy on television—he is much, much more than that. As a writer, his play A Medal for Murray was translated into Hebrew, premiered in Tel Aviv and had a two-year run in Israel, plus he received a Drama Critics Award for 4 Faces, a play that Peter Mark also starred in, and which he performed in New York and Los Angeles and later adapted into a film. In addition, he published a novel, Hollander’s Deal, and a book of short stories, The Rebirth of Ira Masters, while his one-act plays have been produced by the American National Theater and Academy and the Actors Studio, the latter of which Peter Mark has been a member and supporter of for more than six decades. Also an accomplished painter and sketch artist, Peter Mark has had seventeen critically acclaimed one-man exhibitions over the years.

If that’s not enough, Peter Mark Richman is also a registered pharmacist in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact, at a critical point in his career Peter Mark left the security of a $35 a week job as a pharmacist in Pennsylvania to take a chance on a life as a stage actor. While that risk ultimately paid off, Peter Mark still had to overcome the chaos of growing up in a dysfunctional family before leaving his mark as an actor and an artist. We’ll ask him how he did that, and more, when Peter Mark Richman joins us in our second hour.

Peter Mark Richman’s latest book, I Saw a Molten White Light: An Autobiography of My Artistic and Spiritual Journey, is rich with many stories about Peter Mark’s work on stage, film and television, including the pivotal role that the Actors Studio has played throughout his life; insight into “The Method” and what made Lee Strasberg singular among acting teachers; his experience working with the likes of William Wyler, Gary Cooper, Jack Klugman, Dorothy Dandridge and Rod Serling; and how a vision Peter Mark once saw as a young boy became clear to him many years later, with the help of a spiritual exercise known as Subud.

Chuck Harter will join us in our first hour as we take a look at Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is and other national and syndicated pop music TV shows of the mid to late 1960s. Spurred on in part by the British Invasion—and, specifically, such shows as Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go—these shows provided a weekly (or, in the case of Where the Action Is, daily) national TV showcase for such popular groups as The Kinks, The Righteous Brothers, Herman’s Hermits, Darlene Love, Paul Revere and The Raiders, and Ike and Tina Turner. But, as Chuck points out, these shows also broke ground in that, in many respects, they were produced specifically for young viewers.

Photo courtesy The Perry Family

Plus: We will pay tribute to Roger Perry, the stage, film and television actor who was also a talented songwriter and composer. Roger Perry passed away on Thursday, July 12; we’ll replay our conversation with him from November 2017 as part of our program this week.

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